Tide, a poem

Tide

The heartbeat of the moon is measured in
the steady rise and fall of tide on coasts
I’ve never seen. Ah, but I hear that pulse;
it finds its echo in my yearning blood.

She sinks below horizons, seeking seas
unknown save in my dreams and songs once heard,
forgotten now, save for their whispered rhythm.
That also rises, falls, fades from these shores,

but never stills. The moon returns and I
and all the seas will follow in her dance.

Stephen Brooke ©2024

Plot-Driven vs. Character-Driven: English Detective Stories

Evelyn Waugh on mystery writers: "Mrs Christie, on the whole, concentrates her ingenuity on a kind of three card trick, "spot the villain", and even exercises a kind of mesmeric influence on the reader in diverting his attention from the significant details. Miss Sayers, on the other hand, devotes herself more to devising unexpected mechanisms of crime and in creating characters who are of real personal interest quite apart from the importance they attain through the events of the story."

And that is just the difference between a plot-driven and a character-driven novel. Two of the best known English writers of detective stories in the first half of the Twentieth Century, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, do very much illustrate this difference.

Christie’s work is thoroughly plot-driven. Yes, she created quirky and interesting characters, but they do not grow and change much, neither during the original stories nor in the many sequels. The focus is all on the methodology of solving the mysteries, with the characters incidental to this.

I’m entirely willing to admit I’m not much of an Agatha Christie fan. The books are certainly well-written; indeed, they are textbooks of genre mystery writing. They just don’t hold my interest that well.

Sayers is quite another matter. Her best known sleuth, Peter Wimsey, very much grows over the course of several novels. As does his girlfriend* when she appears around halfway through the series. The mysteries, as mysteries, are pretty good but it is really the characters who take our interest. We are investigating not only the who of who-done-it, but also the why.

And for that matter, why the investigator investigates. This doesn’t mean I always care for the points she makes, but there are things to make one think. One doesn’t come away with much of that from a Christie novel.

One would be correct in assuming my own work veers toward the Dorothy Sayers side of things. I’m naturally a writer of characters and not overly interested in complex plots and puzzles: life is usually pretty straightforward, but people aren’t!

*A fairly obvious self-insertion by the author. We’d all like to date our main characters, wouldn’t we?

Historical?

Although the protagonist of my two Wilk adventure novels (‘Wilk’ and ‘The Dictator’s Children’) name-drops all sorts of famous people he has met over the course of the Twentieth Century, I’ve not had him actually interact with any of them in the stories. The one exception is a rather brief meeting with the Soviet general Tukhachevsky, mostly involving having a medal pinned on him.

It could be argued whether the books qualify as historical fiction. I’ve never promoted them as such (aside from dropping it into any keywords). ‘Wilk’ is set in Russia, Central Asia, and China in 1919 and 1920, with our protagonist crossing Asia in those tumultuous years of revolution and civil war. ‘The Dictator’s Children’ takes place in 1948 and is a tale of espionage and crime in Florida and Latin America. History is more a backdrop than the focus of the novels, which is why I prefer to label them as adventures.

Available from arachispress.com

Over in the Meadow

'Over in the Meadow' is a well-known and oft-performed song for children. There have been numerous variants in the lyrics over the past century and some. This is the version I've worked out for my own use and may actually get around to recording someday.

Over in the Meadow

Over in the meadow, in a pond in the sun,
lived a proud mother duck and her little duckling one.
Quack, said the mother. I quack said the one,
and they quacked and were happy in their pond in the sun.

Over in the meadow, in a worn out shoe,
lived a proud mother mouse and her little mousies two.
Squeak, said the mother. We squeak, said the two,
and they squeaked and were happy in their worn out shoe.

Over in the meadow, in a hole in a tree,
lived a proud mother owl and her little owlets three.
Hoot, said the mother. We hoot, said the three,
and they hooted and were happy in their hole in a tree.

Over in the meadow, on a sandy shore,
lived a proud mother snake and her little snakes four.
Hiss, said the mother. We hiss, said the four,
and they hissed and were happy on their sandy shore.

Over in the meadow, in a snug bee hive,
lived a proud mother bee and her little bees five.
Buzz, said the mother. We buzz, said the five,
and they buzzed and were happy in their snug bee hive.

Over in the meadow, in a nest of sticks,
lived a proud mother crow and her little crows six.
Caw, said the mother. We caw, said the six,
and they cawed and were happy in their nest of sticks.

Over in the meadow, in the sight of heaven,
lived a proud mother lark and her little larks seven.
Sing, said the mother. We sing, said the seven,
and they sang and were happy in the sight of heaven.

Over in the meadow, in an old packing crate,
lived a proud mother cat and her little kittens eight.
Mew, said the mother. We mew, said the eight,
and they mewed and were happy in their old packing crate.

Over in the meadow, in a morning glory vine,
lived a proud mother cricket and her little crickets nine.
Chirp, said the mother. We chirp, said the nine,
and they chirped and were happy in their morning glory vine.

Over in the meadow, in a cozy little den,
lived a proud mother fox and her little kits ten.
Bark, said the mother. We bark, said the ten,
and they barked and were happy in their cozy little den.

This arrangement by Stephen Brooke ©2024

Infinity

Our universe, though unimaginably vast, remains finite. Nothing infinite can exist in a finite system.

Does infinity exist at all, other than as a concept? The multiverse theory suggests other universes exist, but that their number also could be finite. Or perhaps not—infinite universes might exist.

We will never be able to know. I will say, however, that God would have to be infinite; anything less, anything finite, could not truly be God. God, then, might be defined as infinite being.

Again, we will never know. We can conceive of infinity and that is in its favor, but it remains impossible to prove.

I can not say I believe in infinite existence, but I operate on the assumption that infinity is real. If nothing else, it gives purpose where a finite universe (or multiverse) would not. That purpose is to be. To exist.

Hiawatha

I read quite a lot of poetry as a little kid. I’m not sure why and I know it’s a bit unusual, but I was going through every anthology in the house by the time I was eight. I might blame it all on Longfellow; I was exposed to ‘Hiawatha’ early on and was entranced by both the rhythms of the poem and its powerful mythic tales. Perhaps my love of fantasy could also find its roots in ‘Hiawatha.’

Helmet Tanka

choosing a helmet
before I ride the bike ~
my fashion statement

I’m partial to the blue fade
but all-black does look classy

Stephen Brooke ©2024

a piece in the form of a tanka